Ford plans to restart production of the electric F-150 Lightning on March 13

DETROIT – Ford Motor plans to restart accumulation of its electrical F-150 Lightning pickup connected March 13 – much than a period aft a battery issue caused 1 of the vehicles to drawback fire.

The automaker connected Thursday told CNBC the accumulation timeline volition let its artillery supplier, SK On, to physique up accumulation and present artillery packs to the Michigan works wherever the motortruck is produced.

The occurrence occurred Feb. 4 successful a holding batch during a pre-delivery prime cheque portion the conveyance was charging. Ford suspended production of the vehicles and issued a stop-shipment to dealers. Ford declined to disclose details of the contented that caused the conveyance to drawback occurrence oregon of the implemented solution. The institution antecedently said engineers determined determination was nary grounds of a charging fault.

"In the weeks ahead, we volition proceed to use our learnings and enactment with SK On's squad to guarantee we proceed delivering high-quality artillery packs – down to the artillery cells. As REVC ramps up production, we volition proceed holding already-produced vehicles portion we enactment done engineering and parts updates," Ford said successful a connection to CNBC.

Ford past week announced SK had started gathering artillery cells again astatine a works successful Georgia but said the automaker would widen downtime astatine its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center (REVC), wherever the F-150 Lightning is built, done at slightest this week.

The F-150 Lightning is being intimately watched by investors, arsenic it's the archetypal mainstream electrical pickup motortruck connected the marketplace and a large motorboat for Ford. The artillery contented adds to ongoing "execution issues" detailed to investors past period by Ford CEO Jim Farley that crippled the automaker's fourth-quarter earnings.

Ford initially opened lawsuit reservations for the F-150 Lightning erstwhile it was revealed successful May 2021. More than 200,000 reservations were placed anterior to Ford temporarily closing the process to effort to align accumulation with expected demand.

Many preservation owners are inactive waiting for their vehicles, arsenic Ford said earlier Thursday it's sold less than 20,000 of the all-electric trucks since they went connected merchantability past year.